


the darkest shades of red

by alderations



Series: reunions [2]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Aftercare, Bets & Wagers, Bondage, Breathplay, Card Games, Choking, Cock Stepping is that what it's called, Cockwarming, Coming Untouched, Communication, Consensual Non-Consent, Creampie, Dom/sub, Electrocution, Enthusiastic Consent, Fluff and Smut, Genderfluid Character, Gentle Sex, Hair-pulling, I guess????, Kink Negotiation, Lab Sex, Library Sex, Manhandling, Marking, Mind Sex, Mirror Sex, Multi, Multiple Orgasms, Overstimulation, Painplay, Ravishment Fantasy, Reunion Sex, Rope Bondage, Rough Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Roleplay, Shibari, Spaceships, Spanking, Spitroasting, Trans Male Character, Unsafe Sex Between Immortals, Vaginal Sex, Verbal Humiliation, Vibrators, Wire Play, bad romance novel roleplay basically, disregard for the most basic lab safety principles, i have NO IDEA how to tag auroras bit, im running out of words for the things that im writing at this point, like. sexually, robot body horror a little bit, yes both. dw bout it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:14:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26386219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alderations/pseuds/alderations
Summary: All of the Mechanisms have missed Brian, whether or not they're willing to admit it.They all have their own reunions.
Relationships: Drumbot Brian/Ashes O'Reilly/Gunpowder Tim, Drumbot Brian/Jonny d'Ville, Drumbot Brian/Marius von Raum, Drumbot Brian/The Toy Soldier, Ivy Alexandria/Drumbot Brian, Raphaella la Cognizi/Drumbot Brian, The Aurora/Drumbot Brian, polymechs
Series: reunions [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1917655
Comments: 79
Kudos: 171





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Jonny is trans, words used include: dick, cunt
> 
> This is all consensual (kinky) sex, but they don't do a great job of communicating, which they then talk about! Take care of yourselves, lovely readers.

Brian spends his first few days post-sun-removal in the medbay, in part because it’s hard to walk, but mostly because Marius is good company and keeps him more sane than he would’ve expected.

He’s terrified by how hard it is for him to move around, by how exhausted he feels when he drags himself out of bed, though Marius assures him that his mechanism could be feeling fatigue just as much as any other part of himself. In the end, Brian chooses to believe that, if only to staunch his own anxiety before it gets out of hand.

On the bright side, Jonny sneaks into the medbay every night to pass out on top of his chest, which Brian wouldn’t trade for the world. He doesn’t need to  _ sneak,  _ per se, but Brian doesn’t comment on the drama of it all. For the first few nights, Jonny doesn’t stay awake for long, instead letting the soft whir of Brian’s machinery lull him to sleep, while Brian stares at the ceiling and listens to his gentle breaths. The feeling of another person living—breathing, snoring, tossing and turning—so close to him makes something well up in his chest that he doesn’t know how to handle.

By the fourth night, Brian has regained enough energy to walk around the medbay in tentative circles, poking at Marius’s hoard of random bullshit while Jonny perches on the bed and watches him, hand covering a smile. “Do you need something?” Brian finally asks, when Jonny’s snickering gets too loud to ignore.

“You,” Jonny replies.

Brian smirks, assuming Jonny’s messing with him. After all, he insisted on the first night that Brian wasn’t ready for sex yet—and he’d been right, Brian was exhausted and too sensitive and emotional for much of anything at that point. But after a few days, the feeling of Jonny’s skin resting warm and  _ alive  _ against his metal plating is starting to get to him. When he looks up, Jonny’s not smiling anymore, just watching him with patient hunger in his cold eyes.

The three steps that take Brian back to the bed are the steadiest ones he’s managed yet.

Still, Jonny pushes him back into the pillows and strips both of their clothes himself, shooing Brian’s hands away when he reaches down to stroke his fingers between Jonny’s legs. “You’re stalling,” he insists.

“Foreplay isn’t  _ stalling.” _

Jonny rolls his eyes. “Semantics. Just—sit back and let me do the work. You’re still healing.”

“Jonny— _ oh.”  _ Brian cuts off with a sigh as Jonny sinks down onto him, hot and twitching as he adjusts to a cock that’s bigger than he’s had in a long while. He rides Brian with a sort of leisurely calm that stands at odds with his usual persona, though he’s tight and wet enough around Brian to drive him to the edge quickly. “Can I give you marks?” Brian murmurs against Jonny’s skin, knowing that he’ll want to feel some reminder of this moment long after Brian’s inside him.

A ragged breath. “Please.”

He gasps when Brian’s teeth make contact with his throat, tracing down the tender skin to suck a bruise into the hollow of his collarbone. When Brian comes, his moans are muffled in the crook of Jonny’s neck. Then he sinks back into the pillows and guides Jonny up the bed, shuffling awkwardly on his knees, to let Brian get a taste of him at last.

As predicted, Marius kicks them out the next morning when he arrives bright and early to find them naked on the medbay cot, barely tangled in the sheets. The next few nights play out similarly—in the past, Brian wouldn’t have spent so long doting on one partner, but some combination of guilt and yearning keeps Jonny close by his side, and he’s not exactly dying to run off and fuck someone else when he has the first mate falling to pieces on his cock every night. They’ll get their turns eventually. As much as Jonny seems keen on taking things slow and gentle, he also gets frustrated with the romanticism of the whole situation by the end of the first week. “You can actually  _ fuck  _ me, you know,” he complains, lips close enough to brush Brian’s as he speaks.

Brian studies his face for a long moment, thrusts coming to a halt. “You want me to fuck you?”

“Mhm.”

“You want me to be rough with you?”

Jonny grins, something feral and inimitable. “Yes, please.”

“Safeword the same?”

As soon as Jonny nods—and Brian doesn’t miss the way his cunt tenses in anticipation—he flips them both over, spreading Jonny out underneath him on the bed and pinning his wrists down on either side of his head. “Put your legs up.”

Jonny’s knees rise, but he doesn’t make that much of an effort. “I  _ said,  _ put your fucking legs up,” Brian repeats, before letting go of Jonny’s wrists in favor of grabbing his ankles and forcing them as close to his shoulders as they’ll go. Jonny yelps, eyes wide, and then breaks into a string of colorful curses as Brian plunges into him and starts to fuck him as promised. “Is this what you wanted?”

Though he has a variety of cocks to choose from, Brian usually picks the larger ones for Jonny, knowing how much he savors the stretch and the ache of being pushed past his physical limits and well toward his mental ones. “F-fu-fuck,” Jonny pants.

“Yes. I am doing that. Doesn’t answer my question, though.”

“B-Brian—it’s too much, it’s too  _ deep,  _ I c-can’t…”

Brian adjusts the angle of his hips until he knows he’s hitting Jonny’s cervix with each thrust, just from the way his eyes go hazy and his cheeks burn red. “Yes, you can. You’ve taken all of me plenty of times. Though it’s been a while, hm? Haven’t been fucked this deep in a thousand years?”

“Ha-haven’t,” Jonny repeats.

“I don’t believe that,” says Brian, letting a hint of cruelty drip into his voice. In any other situation, it would feel unnatural to him, but he feels Jonny shiver under him in response. “You couldn’t go that long without this. I’m sure you had them all fist you at some point, just so you could remember what it was like to take something big enough to really  _ hurt  _ you.”

Tears leak from the corners of Jonny’s eyes. “N-n-not the s-same. Wasn’t like—like y-you.”

“That’s so sweet,” Brian soothes, punctuated with a downright violent thrust. “Not enough to keep me from hurting you, of course. But I know that’s what you’re after.”

Jonny’s eyes roll back in his head when Brian drops one of his legs in favor of thumbing his dick. “Please,” he pants, “B-Brian, it  _ hurts,  _ let me—”

“Yes, sweetheart, I know. That’s not going to stop you from coming, though, is it?”

“P-please,” Jonny whines again. His face is wet with tears, but Brian can also feel his walls fluttering around him as he’s dragged closer to the edge. “I’m—I. I c-can’t.”

Brian kisses him, painfully tender in contrast to the way he’s forcing his cock into Jonny to the root. “You can come for me, love. Come for me while I wreck you.”

He doesn’t slow down in the slightest, even as Jonny squirms and contracts and cries under him. It takes the bare minimum of vibration in his fingers to finish him off, since Brian knows how worked up he gets from the pain alone, and Brian fucks him through it until he can no longer hold off his own orgasm under the pressure of Jonny’s cunt clenching. “Brian,” Jonny gasps when he grinds to a halt at last.  _ “Fuck,  _ I needed that.”

It takes Brian another minute to remember how to speak again, and even longer for him to ease out of Jonny without hurting him any more. “Good,” he replies at last, leaning down to kiss Jonny on the forehead. “Are you… okay?”

“Of course I’m okay. I told you I wanted to be fucked, and you fucked me. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

Brian sighs, because Jonny had been putting on such a nice show of emotional availability for the last few days, but it was never destined to last. “Jonny. Just because we’ve done this dozens of times before, doesn’t mean that it’s always going to be the same. I think I have the right to check in with you after you literally beg me to stop hurting you, even if it’s part of a scene.”

For once, Jonny actually seems to process his words as he props himself up on his elbows, his eyes fixed on Brian’s golden lips. “Are  _ you  _ okay?” he mutters.

“Jonny.”

“Brian.”

“I get stuck in a star for a thousand years, and you get all emotionally constipated, huh?”

Jonny glares up at him, but his face softens when he takes in Brian’s sympathetic smile. There’s no pity behind it, no judgment, just a quiet adoration that Brian tries not to voice too often, just because it makes Jonny’s hackles rise like a cornered hyena. “I’m… I… maybe I feel like I deserve to be used by you, after I left you there. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“If it’s the truth, yes.”

A sniffle. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. I—I don’t know. ‘M sorry, I should’ve s-said something, I just…”

“Jonny,” Brian stops him. “It’s okay. Next time, we’ll talk about it beforehand, alright? Both of us. Just because you  _ like  _ what we do, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t communicate.”

After a few seconds of tense silence, Jonny sits up so that he can throw his arms around Brian’s neck and bury his face in his shoulder. “I really fucking missed you,” he mumbles.

“I know, love. I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *honk* horny brain go brrrrr.
> 
> There will be... many chapters of this, I already have Jonny and TS written, and Marius is up next (cuz I'm horny for Marius). If you have good ideas or suggestions for ways that Brian can get ~reacquainted~ with the crew, and you're cool with me using those ideas, please let me know! Especially Tim. I always have a hard time with Tim. *bdum-tss* (get it it's a dick joke)
> 
> Comments in general are Deeply meaningful to me, I love kudos, I love your Powerful Brainwaves if you're not the type to leave either of those! I love all of it. Find me on tumblr @alderations or twitter @alderwrites, I will happily take prompts (especially cuz, like, sometimes I'd like to NOT be utterly controlled by the whims of Horny Brain).
> 
> also let me know if I missed any tags!!!


	2. Chapter 2

Even after a week out of the sun, Brian’s metal body struggles to heal as quickly and thoroughly as it used to. Most of the time, he asks Nastya for help with repairs, but there are some situations in which his internal workings are too delicate for human hands, and those are the times when he’s truly relieved to live on a spaceship with the Toy Soldier.

Between its studious whittling and the attention it gives to its own clockwork, Brian trusts it to work on his machinery better than he would trust himself, and that’s why he’s sitting in the Aurora’s kitchen with his busted hand lying palm-up on the table, trying to stay still as the Toy Soldier tinkers with the dented plating. Tim had shot him in the hand, which isn’t unusual, but he is a bit perturbed by the fact that his body just… stopped healing after it did a shoddy job of filling in the hole left by the bullet. “Can You Feel This, Old Bean?” the Soldier asks, plucking a wire between two delicate wooden fingertips and studying Brian’s face.

“Y-yes,” he grits out. “Are your wires…  _ not  _ sensitive?”

“I Don’t Have Wires! I Am Made Of Wood!”

It has a point. “That’s fair. But yes, that is a, um, strong sensation. It’s like the nerves in a human, but also. Not?”

The Toy Soldier nods sagely and replaces the wire with gentle fingers, then picks up the tiniest screwdriver Brian’s ever seen and starts removing a panel farther up his wrist. “I Believe I Will Have To Touch A Few Wires, As They Appear To Be Damaged.”

“‘S alright,” Brian reassures it, though he can’t keep his eye from twitching when it brushes its thumb along the tendons—no, pistons—in his wrist. “As long as Tim didn’t wreck anything too badly.”

It laughs, a soft and tinkling thing that makes Brian’s chest swell with affection. “Have No Fear, My Good Chap! I Will Have You Right As Rain Before Long.”

Brian takes a deep breath and bites his tongue to keep himself from gasping out loud, since it’s started to pick apart the gears in the center of his palm and identify the pieces that need the most repair. When he said that the wires are  _ sensitive,  _ he’s not sure what kind of meaning the Toy Soldier took from that, but it’s… a lot, having these things touched. Nastya tends to work quickly and leave little room for gentle caresses, whereas the Toy Soldier seems so enamored with Brian’s circuitry that he doesn’t have the heart to rush it along. Honestly, he can’t blame it; he feels the same on the rare occasion that he gets to help it with its own clockwork, which is absolutely stunning but often kept well-hidden behind its polished exterior. “Any idea why things aren’t healing on their own?”

“I Am Not A Medical Professional!”

“I’d trust you over Marius,” Brian counters. It seems genuinely flattered by that, tipping its head to one side as it pulls a jeweler’s loupe out of its waistcoat to better study his hand. “That— _ ow!” _

The Toy Soldier freezes. “So Sorry, My Friend! I Will Need To Remove This Piece To Access The Damaged Wiring, If I May.”

Brian waits for a moment, expecting it to proceed, and then nods when he realizes it’s actually awaiting his permission. That gives him the time to take a deep breath and brace himself before it disconnects the piston where his third metacarpal should be. Without it, he has an unobstructed view of the wires sprawling inside the back of his hand, a shining imitation of vasculature. As the Toy Soldier predicted, several of the wires are frayed or broken in places, leaving a wild tangle that it examines silently for a long minute before tracing a large red wire down from his wrist and into the mess. Its wooden fingertip brushes the wire here and there as it makes a few mental calculations, and Brian grits his teeth. “Any thoughts?”

“No!”

That’s patently untrue, but Brian doesn’t want to open that particular can of worms with it today. “I mean, do you have a plan of action here?”

It brings a finger to its lips—or where they would be—as it picks up the clump of wires and draws them out onto the table as delicately as it can. Brian still gasps. “I Will Untangle This!”

“G— _ guh _ —great,” Brian breathes. The Soldier seems oblivious to just how affected he is by having his fucking  _ nerves  _ laid out on the table, but he’s sure that won’t last long. It’s keener than it admits. “You don’t need to be so, uh, careful. Nastya probably would’ve ripped them all out already.”

“I Have Nothing But The Highest Respect For Fine Machinery, Sir Drumbot!”

Brian sighs. “I appreciate that, sincerely, but—mmph.” With the Toy Soldier picking at the tangle of wires with its wooden fingernails, Brian suddenly finds himself struggling to string words together. “I—I’m—um. I kn-know you know what you’re, uh, what you’re doing.”

It strokes the frazzled end of one wire as it searches for its origin, fingers dancing across the colorful cables until it finds what it’s looking for and slowly draws it out from the rest. “My Good Chum, Are You Quite Alright?”

“Y-yeah. Delightful.” Brian bites his lip on a moan. It hurt at first, but now the Soldier is being so delicate and precise that its touches have taken on a more pleasurable quality. No longer overstimulated, Brian unconsciously rubs his thighs together as it smoothes out the broken casing on a shredded wire.

The Toy Soldier notices the sound of his clothes rustling and looks up, giving Brian a good look at the mischief sparkling in its eyes. He has yet to understand how a wooden soldier can be so expressive, but he’s not one to talk. “How Does This Feel?” it asks, separating one snapped wire and holding it end-to-end with the part that innervates his middle finger so that his mechanism can smooth the two pieces together.

Hand clapped over his mouth, Brian fights to keep himself from doubling over. “Th-that’s, uh, I, um. It’s alright, TS. N-no need to worry about me.”

“Oh Dear, Did I Give You That Impression?” it chuckles. “I Am Not Concerned! Simply Observing!”

It turns its attention back to Brian’s hand, and for a few minutes it works in silence, giving each wire an appreciative pat as it’s coaxed out of the knot and set back where it belongs within his hand’s plating. Brian, on the other hand, struggles to stay quiet. Every time he bites his lip on a moan or shuffles in his seat, he sees the Toy Soldier’s head angle toward him, as if cataloguing his reactions. By the time the last wire has been straightened out and healed back into place, he’s struggling to breathe. “Is—is th-that all?” he manages, just as Marius walks in.  _ Damn  _ his luck.

“Just Need To Replace The Pistons, My Good Man. What Ho, Marius!”

Brian flinches when Marius flops into a chair on the other side of the table, then leans over to examine the Toy Soldier’s handiwork. Despite what it says, the Toy Soldier is still just playing with the wires in his hand, pretending to admire the machinery while it transparently torments Brian. “How come you never let  _ me  _ do this, Bri?” complains Marius.

“B-because you d-don’t even know what you’re doing with  _ humans,  _ von Raum.”

The good doctor snorts. “My degree is in robotics. Though I’ll give the Toy Soldier credit on account of being an actual automaton.”

“I Am Far More Complex Than The Average Automaton,” it insists in a rare show of self-confidence. Brian wants to be proud of it, but he’s too busy trying to stifle the needy sounds building in his throat. The Toy Soldier keeps looking at him out of the corner of its eye, watching him tremble in his chair.

Three hours ago, he was still in bed with Jonny; he has no right to be so worked up already, and yet.

“Are you alright, Drumbot? Looking a bit peaky,” Marius notes.

Brian curses under his breath. “Fine. Absolutely fine. If you wouldn’t m-mind just, ah, giving me… um…” He trails off as the Toy Soldier snaps the piston back into place, sending a wave of electrical stimulation up his arm and pushing him over the edge. While he manages to stay silent, there’s no hiding the way he curls over himself and bites his free hand hard enough to leave tiny dents in the brass. “F-fuck,” he whispers to himself.

When he looks up again, after what could’ve been seconds or hours, Marius is staring at him with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. “Holy shit, did you just come?”

“N-no—”

The Toy Soldier cuts him off, not with words but with a well-timed finger plucking at the main wire leading to his thumb. “I Believe He Did! Were You Aware That Humans Have Such Delightfully Sensitive Wires?”

“I… well, not  _ most  _ humans, I don’t think,” Marius replies. His gaze is still fixed on Brian, who thinks this is going to be a  _ very  _ long afternoon. “Judging by the look on your face, this is the first time you’ve gotten off on repairs.”

Brian takes a series of breaths to collect himself. “Perhaps. It’s—it’s usually Nastya, and she doesn’t just sit around  _ petting  _ me.”

“You Are Quite Beautiful On The Inside, My Good Sir!”

As compliments from the Toy Soldier go, that’s not all that creepy. “Thanks…?”

“Any Time!”

Marius continues to watch him with unrestrained desire as the Toy Soldier replaces his hand’s outer plating, which decides to heal on its own now that the inner parts are doing better, because his mechanism is a mercurial bastard. Before Brian can offer to return the favor, the Toy Soldier packs up its screwdrivers and loupe and jumps to its feet with a smart salute. “As Interested As I Am In Watching Marius Ravage You, I Am Actually Not, Because I Am Late For Wine And Cheese Night!”

“Wine and cheese night?” Brian echoes, confused.

It beams down at him. “It Is A Girls Only Affair! I Am Sometimes A Girl, And Therefore Invited!”

“Ah. Well, um, thanks.” It just smiles again and takes off, leaving Brian alone with Marius, who’s leaning farther and farther across the table like a cat wiggling its butt before pouncing on its prey. “I wouldn’t mind some wine and cheese,” he mumbles.

“Maybe there’ll be leftovers,” says Marius. “By the time I’m done with you.”

Brian has every right to be exhausted right now, but having an orgasm from his hand—literally—was a weird experience, and other parts of him are feeling  _ very  _ neglected and also  _ very  _ interested in the way Marius’s black eyes rake across him. “I’m just saying, this feels hypocritical after you kicked us out of the medbay.”

“Only because I was excluded!”

“Oh, shut up,” Brian grumbles, grabbing Marius by the hair and pulling him into a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> genderfluid TS rights!!! It's referred to as it, he, she, and I think they? at various points in canon and I just think... it already collects military ranks. It could collect genders too.
> 
> anyway, I'm firmly on Team TS Fucks, I just have absolutely no idea how to write it and all I could think about was the sound a vibrator would make on wood and that's hilarious to me. Shoutout to my bud Hellfire98 for the idea of TS tormenting Brian with hand wires... I'm a sucker for wireplay. Love me a good robot. Of course I had to make it Extra Horny with the accidental exhibitionism because (smacks lips) delicious.
> 
> Comment if you so desire? :3? What do I normally write in these notes. I need to go to bed. I put that in literally every note, don't I? Whatever. Y'all can't prove anything. Goodnight.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some rough breathplay and choking in this chapter!

There’s not much room between Brian and the kitchen table, but that doesn’t stop Marius from wedging himself into Brian’s lap and making himself at home. He kisses Brian like it’s a challenge, like he has to  _ earn  _ the right to be fucked, and while that’s decidedly not the case, Brian doesn’t mind being the sole target of so much enthusiasm. Mismatched hands fiddle with the buttons on his shirt, intent but leisurely, while Marius grinds down against him and shudders when he realizes how hard Brian is. “Ooh, wearing a big one today, are we?”

Brian blushes—for him, that just means a rush of coolant to his face, though he’ll probably never know  _ why  _ Carmilla decided to give him that feature. “I was with Jonny this morning. Didn’t think I’d have any reason to change it, but I can if it’s too—”

“Oh, ye of little faith!” Marius imbues his movements with incredible drama as he pushes Brian’s shirt off his shoulders and goes for the zipper on his pants. “Let’s see what we’re working with.”

Instead of following his gaze, Brian just watches Marius, soaking in the mixture of want and trepidation on his face when he takes Brian’s cock in hand and gives it a few firm strokes. “Is that what you were looking for?” Brian teases.

Marius grins and leans down to kiss Brian again. “Absolutely. I will need a few minutes to be ready for you—shit, do you know what happened to the kitchen lube?”

For probably the thousandth time in his long, long life, Brian wonders how the hell he ended up living on a ship where ‘kitchen lube’ is an established concept. “I’ve been  _ gone  _ for a thousand years, Marius, I don’t know what all has been rearranged.”

“That’s fair! I think it was on top of the fridge, last I checked.” He frowns for a moment, unwilling to climb off of Brian, before conceding and going to hunt for it. Meanwhile, Brian slides his pants off all the way and pushes his chair back just a bit so that Marius doesn’t have to squeeze to fit in his lap. “Want a snack while I’m over here?”

“You’re hopeless,” Brian deadpans.

Marius shrugs and returns with lube in hand, still grinning down at Brian like he’s about to devour him. “Let’s see… you stay in the chair for now, and maybe if you’re good, I’ll let you help.”

“If  _ I’m  _ good?”

That earns him a gentle whack on the shoulder, though Marius is too distracted by climbing back onto him and fiddling with the bottle of lube to put any real weight behind it. He finally gets it open, slicks up his fingers, and begins to finger himself with the kind of intent focus that he saves only for music and, occasionally, sex. “Touch me?”

Brian obliges. One hand curls around the back of Marius’s neck, showing off a hint of the control that he exercises so easily with his strong metal hands, while his other hand rakes through the dark hair on Marius’s belly to wrap around his cock. He doesn’t move it, just leaves it there so that Marius can buck into his grip and then back against his own fingers. Once Marius starts panting, his mouth hanging open and his chest heaving, Brian moves the hand on his neck to grasp his throat and squeezes just enough to feel Marius’s cock twitch against him.

“How long has it been since someone really manhandled you?” Brian asks, pulling Marius closer to him by the neck. “I know no one else is quite tall enough to pull it off.”

Marius chokes on a whimper. “N-no one can—no one… they can’t throw me around like you do.”

“Good. Are you ready?”

This requires a bit more contemplation, not that Marius has the brainpower left to do it. Brian reaches around him and traces the edge of his hole, adding one of his own fingers and watching Marius squirm as he struggles to accommodate the extra stretch. While Marius is the type to jump his bones at a moment’s notice, he also  _ loves  _ this part—he’s been known to come on his own fingers before anyone else can even get a hand on him. “I think you can take me,” Brian decides, before easing Marius’s fingers out of his ass and helping him to his feet. “Let me know if it’s too much, okay?”

“Y-yeah,” Marius agrees, letting Brian guide him over to the wall with a hand on the back of his neck. It’s always satisfying to see him so submissive and almost dreamy in Brian’s hands. “What are—whoa!”

Brian spins Marius around and pushes him into the wall before grabbing his thighs and hefting him off his feet, where Marius instinctively wraps his legs around Brian’s waist just to have something to hold onto. “I’m gonna fuck you now,” Brian informs him. Even if he’s just stating the obvious, it’s worth it to see the way Marius bites his lip and nods. “And you’re going to help. Put it in for me, will you?”

Eager as ever, Marius reaches down to grab Brian’s cock with his lube-slicked hand, pumping it a few times before guiding it to his hole and holding it there as Brian lowers him slowly onto it. “F- _ uuuck,”  _ Marius moans. His head hits the wall with a  _ thunk  _ when he throws it back, exposing his sweating neck to Brian’s mouth. “How the hell does Jonny do this, like, every day?”

“Not  _ every  _ day. Sometimes he has to recover.”

As if to prove his own point, Brian waits for Marius to move his hand before letting his full weight sink onto Brian’s cock until it’s buried in him. Marius cries out and claws at Brian’s shoulders, his thighs tensing as he struggles for purchase, but Brian barely gives him time to adjust before taking a step forward so that Marius is thoroughly pinned against the wall as Brian fucks him. “Fuck, fuck,  _ fuck,”  _ Marius shouts at every thrust, because his creative mind is apparently thrown out the window with a big enough dick inside him. “Ch-choke me. Please.”

Who is Brian to say no? He wraps one arm around Marius’s waist to make sure he doesn’t drop him, then raises his other hand to force two fingers into Marius’s gasping mouth. That’s not what Marius expected, clearly, but he doesn’t complain, just tips his head back as Brian pushes his fingers across his tongue until he gags on them. He keeps that up for a few moments, fucking Marius’s ass and his mouth at the same time, before withdrawing his fingers to give him what he _ really _ wants in the form of a sturdy metal hand around his throat. “You do not have permission to come yet,” he growls when he feels Marius tighten around him. “And if you can’t be a good boy, I’m not going to keep choking you.”

Marius tries, fruitlessly, to shake his head, until Brian lets up on his throat long enough for him to speak. “I’m—I c-can be g-good, Bri, I swear…”

“Good.” Brian cuts off his air again. “You don’t get to finish until I come in you, right here, and then I’m going to drag you to the nearest bathroom so you can watch yourself in the mirror while I fuck you to an orgasm.”

This time, Marius manages to nod. Frantically. It’s a delicate balance, keeping him away from the edge while also getting him worked up, and Brian has found that loaded promises are a good middle ground for Marius. Still, he can’t hold on for too long when he’s still worked up from the Toy Soldier tormenting him, and the way Marius writhes against the wall doesn’t help. Within a few minutes, Brian is burying his teeth in Marius’s shoulder to quiet his own cries as he comes. It’s a duller orgasm from his cock than it was from the wires, but the warm satisfaction of feeling his whole body shudder and come undone around his lover more than makes up for it.

When he pulls back, Marius’s face is turning purple. Brian lets go of his throat, then eases him gently to the ground and inspects the soft bruise forming on Marius’s throat. “Shit, sorry, didn’t realize how hard I was squeezing. Are you alright?”

“Never better,” Marius assures him, voice wrecked. “Surely you’re not done with me already…?”

Brian snorts. “Don’t test me, von Raum.”

Having a dick that can stay hard as long as he wants it to is both a blessing and a curse, Brian figures. On the one hand, he enjoys doing things like this—fucking Marius until he’s a blabbering mess, or seeing how many orgasms he can draw out of Jonny before he can no longer walk. On the other hand, his crewmates are apt to do the same thing to him. He takes his time grabbing Marius by the hair and steering him toward the bathroom, just to give his mechanical synapses time to recover before he crowds Marius against the sink and fucks him again. Given the way his face goes even redder and his eyes fixate on the mirror, Marius enjoys watching himself get wrecked.

Brian guides one of Marius’s legs up until his knee is resting on the edge of the sink, then gathers his wrists behind his back to hold him in place and squeezes his throat again with his free hand. “I’m not going to touch you again,” Brian murmurs, lips cool against Marius’s ear. “You come like this, or not at all.”

Marius whines, but Brian knows that’s not really a challenge. He’s seen Marius come from much less plenty of times, and besides, there’s no way Brian’s  _ not  _ hitting the right spots when he’s fucking Marius with a cock this big. Setting a harsh pace, Brian digs his fingers into Marius’s throat in time with his thrusts and revels in the way Marius claws at his arm, his hair, the edge of the sink, anything that he thinks will give him the relief he needs. Brian doesn’t let up. Something in Marius’s hip pops as Brian forces his leg a bit higher, and if they  _ weren’t  _ immortal that might be of concern, but either way Marius doesn’t react to the sound. Spit starts to drip from the corner of his mouth as his body fights for air, throat flexing against Brian’s hold. “I can feel how close you are. Can you be good for me?”

“Please—please—hngh—”

Brian finally lets his metal fingers clamp around Marius’s throat with a fraction of their full strength, which shuts him up instantly. “Please what? Touch you? I just told you, I won’t do that until you come. As tempting as it is.”

He’s being honest about that—Marius’s cock bounces against his stomach with every thrust, heavy and leaking, and Brian would  _ love  _ to get his mouth on it, but he’d love even more to watch Marius come untouched. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to wait long—he lets Marius breathe before he can pass out, then lets go of his wrists and instead grabs both of Marius’s thighs to lift him fully off the ground. With his legs spread apart, giving Brian all the room he needs to impale him on his cock, and his flushed body exposed to his own perusal in the mirror, Marius can’t keep himself together. His head falls back onto Brian’s shoulder as he comes, moaning and convulsing and making an absolute mess of the sink. “Fuck,” Marius pants as he starts to go limp in Brian’s arms. “Shit, I missed you.”

Brian kisses the side of his neck and puts his legs down, moving slow enough that Marius has time to find his balance before Brian pulls out of him and gives him space to move. “I still think Tim could do that if he tried.”

“Tim? Are you  _ kidding  _ me? You’ve seen how scrawny the man is,” Marius insists. “Besides, it’s not like I’m just interested in being fucked by someone tall. It’s about the  _ strength.  _ You don’t give yourself enough credit, Brian.”

Although he doesn’t want to admit it out loud, Brian’s heart swells at the knowledge that his crew really  _ does  _ care about him. Even if it’s just because he’s a good lay. Even if they left him in a sun for a thousand years. “I… thanks.”

“Glad to have you back.” Marius tries to turn around, only for his knees to buckle under him. “Now, um, is there any way you could… help me find somewhere to sit down?”

Brian laughs and scoops Marius into his arms, heading back toward the kitchen. “Any time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me last night: why did I set myself up to write Marius next, I don't have an Idea tm yet  
> me this morning: idea schmidea marius hot.
> 
> If you've ever been like "I wanna comment but I don't know what to say" then here is a Prompt: comment with a ridiculous name for a shitty bodice-ripper romance novel about a robot, because lord knows I won't be able to come up with one on my own. That's a hint for next chapter. ;3c
> 
> anyway! thank you for reading! and for SO MANY comments on the last two chapters, holy shit y'all are incredible!!!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check the updated tags! this chapter contains a bad romance novel-esque ravishment fantasy/consensual non-consent scene. please let me know if i missed any tags!!

Ivy has always spent most of her time in the library, but it’s still unusual that Brian hasn’t seen her at all since he returned.

A few days before, he even felt well enough to make dinner for everyone, but neither she nor Raphaella made an appearance—though he wrote it off at the time, assuming they were indisposed together. Now that he still hasn’t run into her, Brian is starting to get concerned, so he finally steels himself and heads to the library to figure out what her deal is.

She’s not hard to find, perched on a desk in the middle of it all and surrounded by, unsurprisingly, piles of books. Even as he lets his metal feet echo against the floor, she doesn’t look up. Thus, Brian has plenty of time to get a good look at the cover of the book she’s holding right now, which appears to be a sappy romance novel featuring a character that looks… a  _ lot  _ like him, actually. Tall, shiny metal man with long curly hair, holding a guitar in one hand, his other arm wrapped around the waist of a woman in a frilly dress who appears to be mid-swoon. Brian bites his lip and steps close enough that he can peer at Ivy over the top of the book. “How’s it going?”

“Good afternoon, Drumbot,” she replies coolly.

“Interesting choice of reading material. Any particular… inspiration?”

Ivy lowers the book at last, just to fix him with a deadpan glare that just makes Brian painfully aware of how much he’s missed her. “Take a wild guess.”

“If you want to play out your fantasies,” Brian suggests, taking the book from her hands and setting it to the side, “you just need to use your words. I’m at your disposal.”

For once, Ivy doesn’t seem too bothered by having her book taken away, though she still eyes it to make sure Brian didn’t dogear any pages before turning back to him. “If a demure librarian secretly dreams of being carried off and used by a dastardly robot, can you really blame her?”

“I… well, I wouldn’t call you demure. Or myself—”

“That’s the point, Brian.” She reaches up to trace the line of his jaw, pressing her thumb into his lip to keep him quiet. “You’d have to get  _ creative.” _

Brian kisses the pad of her thumb. “I still need to know your limits. You want me to tie you up? Rip your clothes off? Carry you away like a prize to be enjoyed?”

“All of the above,” Ivy breathes.

“Will you enjoy it from the beginning, or are you going to fight me? Shall I have you gagged? Blindfolded? I know where you keep most of your gear, after all. Unless that’s changed in the past millennium.”

Her eyes flick upward while she thinks, before she makes up her mind and drapes her arms around his shoulders. “Let’s keep it simple, I think. I want to be able to see you and—and  _ beg  _ for things. But I absolutely want to be bound,” she reinforces with a nod toward the long coil of rope sitting behind her on the desk. Brian hadn’t noticed it before, hidden behind her as it was, but he can’t help but laugh at her preparedness. When Ivy knows what she wants, she knows how to get it, too.

“Alright. I think I can make that work for you,” he purrs. “Same safeword?”

“Red for stop, yellow for check in,” Ivy confirms.

With that, Brian straightens to his full height and takes a deep breath, attempting to find the headspace of the kind of Evil Robot who would kidnap and ravage sweet, innocent librarians. (No one in their right mind has ever called Ivy sweet or innocent, but that’s part of the headspace, too.) “Miss Alexandria, I have to say, you did an awfully good job of hiding from me.”

For a moment, Ivy looks concerned, as if Brian’s actually reprimanding her for avoiding him, but then she smirks. “It’s my library. If anyone would know how to stay hidden from danger, it’d be me.”

“Unfortunately for you,” Brian counters, “there’s nowhere for you to hide anymore. So the question becomes, what am I going to do with you?”

She studies him for a long second, eyes flicking across his face, and then she tips backward off the desk and rolls onto the floor. Brian’s surprise keeps him stuck in place long enough for Ivy to rise to her feet and sprint off between the shelves, getting a head start before Brian can take off after her. If she wants a chase, he can oblige. While Ivy knows her way around the library better than Brian ever will, he has at least a foot on her and can move  _ very  _ fast when he wants to, so it only takes him a few minutes to close the gap and grab her by the arm. Ivy growls at him, kicks and flails and bares her teeth, while Brian wraps his other arm around her neck and squeezes until she stops trying to fight. “That was a valiant effort,” he praises her, lips against her ear. “But you’re mine now, librarian. And if you try to escape again, you’ll pay for it.”

Ivy shivers in his arms. “Pay for it how?”

“Hm. Too much attitude already.” Brian keeps his elbow applying pressure to her throat, but lets go of her arm with his other hand, which allows him to get a hold of the coil of rope that he grabbed on his way after her. “Put your hands behind your back, archivist.”

“No?”

Brian bites her ear gently. “I could dislocate your shoulders without even thinking about it. Would you rather comply, or let me do things  _ my  _ way?”

He feels her throat move as she swallows, and then, slowly, she stops clawing at his arm and moves her hands behind her back as requested. “Good girl,” Brian soothes, finally letting go of her neck to tie her hands together. He moves fast enough that she’s bound before she can start to summon her fight once again, so he just holds on to the end of the rope and tugs her close against his chest when she tries to make a break for it. “Not learning our lesson here, are we?”

“Fuck you,” Ivy spits.

Before she can try to push away from him again, Brian turns back toward the center of the library and heaves her over one shoulder. “I was planning on it, certainly. Didn’t expect you to be so hasty.”

Ivy knees him in the chest, the futility of her efforts as clear as the  _ clang  _ her shoes make against Brian’s metal torso. “Put me down!”

“I don’t think so, unless you’re about to change your mind and just go along with whatever I tell you.” She kicks him again, and Brian smirks as he heads for the desk where he first found Ivy reading. “Thought so. You’re just making things harder for yourself, you know.”

When he gets to the desk, Brian swings her off his shoulder and sets her back on her feet gently, only to bend her over and secure the end of the rope to the one leg of the desk so that he doesn’t have to hold onto it. It doesn’t take much effort to nudge her legs apart. “Weakening your resolve already?”

“No,” Ivy insists, her voice muffled from Brian pressing her face into the desk.

He brushes a hand across her thighs, getting a fistful of her skirt and then tugging it down in a slow, teasing motion. “Hm. I guess I have to do everything myself, then.”

As soon as her skirt is pulled down around her knees, Brian reaches back up to rip her tights open and soak in the way she shivers at the sound. With that layer of fabric out of the way, he presses a finger against her through her underwear, delighted by the warm wetness already soaking through. “D-don’t touch me,” she snarls.

Brian ignores her in favor of pressing one metal fingernail into her clit through the fabric, making her jump. “Are you  _ sure  _ that’s what you want?” After a moment of silence, he pulls her underwear off, making sure both it and her skirt are untangled from her legs so that he can force them as wide as they can go without putting her off-balance. With both of his hands in use, he’s no longer holding Ivy’s head down, and she turns to look at him, fire in her eyes as she glances up at his face and down at the obvious bulge in his pants. “Or is  _ this  _ what you want?” says Brian, making a show of the way he palms his cock through his trousers.

“I’m—n-no,” Ivy stammers. Her face is glowing red.

“Too bad I don’t care for your opinion.” Brian grabs a handful of her ass and ruts against her, letting the friction of coarse fabric on her delicate skin build until she’s gasping, and then he pulls away and drops to his knees. “You’re not getting it yet, anyway. Not until I’ve had a taste of you.”

Ivy shivers and opens her mouth again, but nothing comes out when Brian spreads her with his hands and licks from her clit to her hole and back again. Of all the  _ many  _ weird choices Carmilla made when designing his mechanism, his saliva—a strange body-safe machine lubricant that doesn’t really seem to serve any purpose outside of not poisoning people who kiss him—is one of the most peculiar, but he’s begrudgingly grateful for it. Either way, Ivy starts trembling in a matter of seconds as Brian eats her out, eyes closed and focus narrowed to the taste of her and the warmth of her thighs shaking under his hands. He presses his tongue into her to feel how wet she is, not to mention hot and tight and sensitive, then moves down again to suck her clit between his teeth and lavish it with the attention it deserves. It’s been a bit since she left the library to seek out human companionship, Brian figures, because she starts gasping and clawing the top of the desk in a matter of minutes. As soon as he brings one softly-vibrating finger up to stroke her entrance, she groans something unintelligible and falls apart under him.

Brian keeps teasing her with the same finger until she’s squirming away from his touch, at which point he stands and brushes a tuft of scarlet hair out of her face. “How are you feeling, love?”

“Fantastic,” Ivy pants.

Just to get a good look at her face, Brian helps her roll onto her back and then pulls her up gently until she’s sitting on the desk. She will definitely leave a wet spot, but he can clean it up later. “Color?”

“Green. Across the board.” Her pupils are blown wide, and her face is hot to the touch when Brian cups her cheek. “I would like to continue, if you feel the same.”

Before Brian can pull himself back into character, an octokitten oozes out from behind the nearest bookshelf, staring at them both and chirping ominously. “Has… that been there the whole time?” Brian asks.

“Well, I  _ did  _ call for backup,” Ivy muses, turning toward him in defiance. “So those must be my reinforcements.”

Brian raises his eyebrows, then kneels to untie the end of the rope from the desk so he can tug Ivy along into the rows and rows of bookshelves. “Backup, hm? Well, we can’t have that. Come on, then.” When Ivy stops and stands stock-still, staring up at Brian with her jaw clenched, he grabs the back of her neck and exerts just enough force to push her ahead of himself, leveraging the constant threat of his strength against her stubbornness. “Fighting isn’t going to get you anywhere, librarian. I figured you’d have learned that by now.”

“There’s a ninety-seven percent chance it’s going to get me fucked,” Ivy mutters.

Once they’re far enough from any overly curious octokittens, Brian turns and steers Ivy between two shelves, which, to his luck, happen to be hiding a polished wooden stepladder. “That’s what you want now, is it?”

Ivy just glares.

“You can’t pretend you’re not  _ soaked,  _ after I had my face in your cunt for the past several minutes. But if you’re just trying to play along so I’ll be nice to you, I have bad news.” He guides her to the stepladder and nudges her until she climbs onto it, back to the rungs. “I don’t care what you pretend to do. You’re a plaything for me to use, and when I get tired of you, I’ll turn you over to the rest of my crew. And to be honest? Between the lot of us, I’m the  _ nice  _ one.”

As Brian positions her, adjusting her stance with incongruously gentle hands, Ivy bites her lip and succumbs to a shiver that passes through her whole body. Even without touching her, he can tell that she’s keyed in to his every movement. Her eyes follow his hands when he unties her wrists, crosses her forearms behind the ladder, and binds them there, then ties her ankles to the rails, giving her just enough room to perch on her toes on the second step. With her legs slightly spread and her arms out of the way, she has no way to cover herself. “Wh-what are you doing?” she asks when Brian ducks under the ladder to get a good look at her hands.

“Making sure I’m not cutting off your circulation. Wouldn’t do me any good to hurt my new toy,” he teases. They’re in a dimmer part of the library, but Brian’s mechanical eyes don’t need much light to see the way Ivy’s fists clench around nothing. “Looks good. Can you feel your feet?”

She nods, lips parting in anticipation as Brian stands up to his full height. Without warning, he hooks a finger in the collar of her shirt and yanks it downward, sending buttons flying and leaving Ivy’s chest open to his ministrations. He pinches one of her nipples and runs his other hand up her sternum and toward her neck, where he brushes it along the column of her throat just to feel her quiver. “Ready for me?”

Apparently Ivy is not playing the part of a pushover librarian, because she spits at him. “Fuck off.”

Brian laughs, deep and reverberating in his chest. “You have no idea what I could do to you right now, lovely little archivist. Be glad I’m only making you take my cock.”

She opens her mouth to sass him some more, but before she can form a sentence, Brian unzips his fly and pulls himself out, then shoves three fingers in her mouth. Of course, Ivy immediately bites him. “Don’t test me,” he growls, stepping closer until his feet are under the lowest rung of the ladder and rubbing the head of his cock across her clit.

“Then fuck me already,” she commands, lips stretched around his fingers.

Brian obliges. As soon as he enters her, he withdraws his hand, so that he can hear her cry out at the sudden stretch of Brian’s… fourth biggest cock. It’s one of the longest, and he’s grateful for his own foresight there, because the ladder makes the angle a bit awkward. Still, when he grabs her hips and slams into her in earnest, he can tell from the look on her face that he’s getting  _ very  _ deep. “How’s that?” he prods, keeping his eyes on hers. “Am I fucking you to your liking?”

“M-maybe. Haven’t,  _ ah,  _ haven’t decided yet.”

Instead of taking the bait, Brian leans in to mouth at the shell of her ear. “Who could have guessed that the innocent bookworm was desperate to be tied up and plowed? How many times have you let your  _ patrons  _ under your skirt, right here in the bookshelves?”

Ivy shakes her head. “N-not just—not anyone.”

“Only robot pirates. I see.” She opens her mouth to protest, but Brian cuts her off with a domineering kiss. “What about behind your desk? Ever try and explain all your cataloguing to someone while riding a dick? Or would you rather just climb up on the counter and spread your ass for whoever happens to come by?”

“You seem to—to lack a lot of b-basic understanding about how libraries work.”

Brian laughs. “Or maybe I’ve just been to all the  _ fun  _ libraries out there.”

At the suggestion that her library isn’t one of the fun ones, Ivy scowls and bites Brian’s lip the next time he comes in range. It doesn’t really hurt him, since he’s metal, but he still makes an exaggerated hiss and grabs her chin, pinning her head back against the ladder. “Don’t try me,” he reminds her, punctuating the threat with a few sharp thrusts. “I’m being nice at the moment, but I’d be happy to hurt you if that’s what you’d like.”

Ivy whines and tries to twist her face out of his grasp, until Brian takes pity on her and lets her go, though she’s still struggling to put words together given the way Brian is pounding her. “M-m-maybe it i-is.”

While he contemplates his options, Brian rakes his nails down the side of her exposed chest and then grabs a fistful of her hair, tugging her head back so that he can bite her neck almost hard enough to break skin. “I like having you like this,” he admits, “but I’d  _ really _ like to be able to fuck you deep enough to make you squirm. And perhaps see how many slaps it takes to turn your pretty ass red? What do you think?”

“Green,” Ivy answers, her breath rustling Brian’s copper-filament hair.

“Good.” He’s not usually one to change his mind mid-scene, but by the time he gets Ivy untied, turned around, and bent over one rung of the ladder, he’s confident that the time spent will be worth it. With her hands bound behind her once more, Ivy shudders in anticipation. “Hope you’re ready,” Brian teases, not giving her time to respond or even process his words before he sinks back into her.

Her chest slips a bit where it leans against the ladder, until Brian steadies her with a hand on her back. “F-fuck,” she sighs.

Brian smacks her ass hard enough to make her jump. “I wonder what else the crew will want to do with you when I’m done. I’m sure our science officer would enjoy using you as a test subject.”

“Ple-ease,” Ivy moans, barely coherent as Brian continues to spank her.

“Please what? Let Raphaella dissect you?” He didn’t intend for that to be pillow talk, per se, but Ivy arches her back as if the thought alone is pleasurable. “That’s between you and her. I’d rather you be my cockwarmer first.”

To emphasize the promise, Brian spanks her again, then again, until her pale skin starts to color and her breathing turns ragged. “You’re getting off on this, aren’t you?” he realizes. “I’d be happy to assist with that, you know.”

“‘M close,” she confirms.

Brian accelerates his slaps a bit more, then reaches around her with his other hand and rubs rough circles around her clit. Within seconds, she tenses and jerks under him, her fingers curling and her cunt squeezing on every thrust.  _ “Fuck,  _ you feel incredible,” Brian growls as he leans closer and ruts into her wildly. As she passes the peak of her orgasm and starts to shiver back to reality, Ivy’s moans turn to overstimulated mewls.

“Slow d-down,” she pleads through gritted teeth. “Too much.”

Of course, Brian doesn’t let up, because she spasms around his cock every time he puts the slightest pressure on her clit. “Mm, I don’t think so. Just hold still for me, will you? Be a good girl and let me use you.”

“P-please, I—”

Brian slaps her ass again, cutting her off. “Hush, sweet thing. You have no idea what your begging does to me.” He wraps one arm around her waist to get a better grip and gives in to the frenzied heat building in the base of his metal spine. “I’m going to come inside you. I’m going to fill you up, leave you dripping and wrecked and filthy, I’m…”

“Brian—”

_ “Ngh, fuck,  _ Ivy.”

With Ivy shaking and moaning in his arms, Brian comes hard enough that his vision whites out. Even as his robotic brain struggles to reboot the parts of him that short out, he can feel his own cum pumping into her, overflowing in a matter of seconds and spilling down her thighs in a slow trickle. He can control how much he comes, much to the delight of his partners and their various preferences.

Ivy tends to enjoy dramatic amounts, at least in this kind of fantasy. “Fuck, Brian,” she pants when he finally comes back online and shifts inside her.

Brian blinks a few times, making sure his eyes are working alright, and then strokes her side as he slowly pulls out. In all honesty, he’d forgotten that she’s still wearing tights, ripped as they are, and his cock jumps a bit at the sight of the wet streaks running down her legs as she flexes and wiggles on the ladder. “Can I untie you?” Brian asks, already checking to make sure her fingers haven’t gotten too cold.

“Yeah, I’m—I might not be too, um, stable. Statistically speaking.”

“That’s okay,” Brian soothes. He makes quick work of the rope around her wrists and then helps her step away from the ladder and stand up straight. As soon as she can move, her arms wrap around his shoulders and pull his head down to lean against hers. “Are you alright?”

Ivy nods and kisses Brian’s chin, only to get a mouthful of copper wire. “Yeah. That’s—that was exactly what I wanted. You’ve been… gone for a very long time, Brian.”

“I have,” Brian agrees, knowing that Ivy doesn’t feel that absence with the same fiery pain that’s been with him for a thousand years. There’s no way for her to contextualize it, when every day is her first, and he has to remind himself that he has no right to envy her. “Can I carry you?”

With her consent, he picks her up and gives her time to wrap her legs around his waist before heading for her room. Most of Ivy’s pod is taken up by the library, but she has a small residential portion as well, though it’s also full of books. “You don’t have to shower with me if you don’t want to,” Ivy informs him. “Given your propensity for corrosion, it’s probably best if you don’t.”

“I can wait for you. I’m not going to leave you alone right after that,” Brian assures her.

Ivy presses a kiss to his neck. “Thank you.”

“Always, love.”

Brian cleans himself up in a way that  _ doesn’t  _ involve getting water in all his joints, then makes himself comfortable in Ivy’s bed while he waits. Most of the books scattered about are in languages he’s never even heard of, but he manages to find one about aquarium maintenance that he loses himself in for a minute. When Ivy emerges from the shower at last, she curls up in the curve of Brian’s body without hesitation, burying her face in the crook of his neck and letting him take her trembling hands in his own.

“You’re shaking,” he comments as he kisses Ivy’s knuckles one by one.

Her damp hair tickles Brian’s chin as she turns so he can actually hear her response. “Intense emotional reactions are to be expected when coming out of subspace,” she informs him.

“I—yes, they are. It’s okay.” Ivy doesn’t like to be told  _ I know,  _ whether it’s because she’s sharing information that her brain informs her is of vital importance, or just because she’s very excited. It’s been a long time since Brian has had to stop himself like this. “I missed you so much, Ivy. I’ll stay here as long as you want me, alright?”

“Please,” Ivy mumbles into his shoulder.

His heart swells.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is like 4000 words long holy shit why. These were supposed to be DRABBLES. someone send help
> 
> anyway... I get really self-conscious if I feel like I'm writing the same thing multiple times, so now I'm just pushing my comfort zone trying to write new things instead, I guess. Also I just really love Ivy. Hopefully if you made it this far, you enjoyed this and also had a good time with the ridiculous romance novel bullshit because I found it entertaining. (And I think we, as a fandom, need to lean into the whole pirate angle now and then, yknow? In a hot consensual way. I have thoughts.)
> 
> Probably gonna take a bit of a break and write something sfw before I finish this, because my brain needs it, but again - if you have thoughts for Tim or Ashes, let me know! I know what I want to do with Raph already but I'm at a loss after that. Otherwise, leave a comment if you're so inclined? Thank you for reading & chillin here with me on my weird corner of ao3 you're all lovely.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If terrible disregard for lab safety bothers you, this may not be the chapter for you. No one gets hurt, but Raphaella is, y'know, Raphaella.

If Ivy hiding away in the library is unremarkable, then Raphaella spending weeks holed up in her lab is to be expected.

That doesn’t make it a  _ good  _ thing, by any means. Like Ivy and Nastya, Raphaella tends to need more time to herself than most of the crew, but unlike the rest of them, Raphaella is also prone to forgetting about the basic necessities of human life and therefore going days on end with food, water, or sleep. Given that no one has seen her in nearly two weeks, this is probably one of those times. Ivy had been the one to bring it up—she hid in the library in an effort to lure Brian there, and though she didn’t  _ think  _ Raphaella was doing the same, she was still concerned, given that Raphaella had apparently been worse and worse about general principles of self-care over the past few centuries. So, with Ivy’s encouragement and noncommittal agreement from Ashes, who had some complaints to lodge about Raphaella’s unpredictable supply use, Brian stands in the doorway to Raphaella’s lab in an effort to cajole her back into reality.

As soon as he opens the door, she shoots at him, which is no surprise. Brian ducks and keeps walking without missing a beat, while Raphaella only offers him a brief glance before holstering her gun and returning to her work. “What do you want?”

“Just visiting,” Brian assures her.

She doesn’t respond to that, just turns back to the apparatus bubbling in front of her and lets Brian blend into the scenery. Whatever she’s working on looks relatively volatile, which might throw a wrench in Brian’s plans, but it’s not like it could kill either of them. Permanently. He makes his approach as slow and casual as possible, moving inch by inch until he’s leaning against the lab bench next to her. Every once in a while, she glares daggers at him out of the corner of her eye, just in case he gets any ideas about disturbing her experiments, but she makes no move to stop him otherwise.

“Rumor has it, you’ve been spending a lot of time in here lately,” he begins, after watching her work in silence for a few minutes.

Raphaella frowns. “I always do.”

Taking a chance, Brian reaches up to run a finger along the leading edge of her nearest wing, preening the metal feathers in a way that usually makes Raphaella melt like a happy bird. She just shakes him off. “When was the last time you slept?”

“Recently.”

She’s onto him. Brian stops trying to pet her wings and rethinks his strategy. “Have you had anything to eat today?”

“Sure.”

“Raph,” he pleads.

The emotional approach is not going to work, apparently, because she just rolls her eyes without sparing him a glance. “Yes?”

“We’ve been over this. Just because you’re immortal, doesn’t mean—”

“I can run myself into the ground, yes, I’m aware.” She uncaps a test tube of something that smells strongly of begonias, then perks up as she pours its contents into the beaker in front of her, nearly making it boil over. “But I’m  _ not  _ doing that. And I don’t recall asking for your opinion.”

Brian ruminates on this for a bit, while Raphaella continues distilling whatever evil liquid she’s working with and, apparently, assumes the conversation is over. The real question is whether she’ll let him touch her without just murdering him on the spot. Once the assorted liquids in front of her seem relatively stable—at least enough to avoid blowing up if Brian manages to distract her—he tries a different tactic, sneaking around to stand between her wings and slowly, gently, resting his hands on her waist.

She doesn’t jump, but her wings flutter a bit in surprise. “Do you need something?”

“Mm… maybe.” Brian brushes one hand up and down her side, letting his fingers catch her shirt and pull it up just enough to leave a strip of skin exposed above her shorts. “I’ve barely seen you in the past, y’know, millennium.”

“Not my fault,” Raphaella grumbles, though there’s more emotion in her voice than there was a moment ago.

Brian takes a tiny step closer and rests his chin on her shoulder to watch her work. “You haven’t missed me?”

Her hands freeze, even as something off to her left starts steaming violently. To his immense delight, Brian feels her lean back into him, slightly enough that she can deny any intent behind it, but—enough. “Of course I missed you. I’m not just going to throw all my work away because of it, though.”

“Sure.” Brian noses her hair out of the way to kiss the back of her neck and, triumphantly, feels her shiver. “But I didn’t ask you to throw all your work away.”

“This is very time-sensitive,” she insists, while Brian runs his fingers down her hip and splays his palm firm and inviting across the side of her thigh.

His original plan had been to drag her, kicking and screaming if need be, to get some rest and eat something. Now that he’s had a good look at her, though, she appears to be taking care of herself more than he predicted; her eyes are bright and attentive, and she’s not as gaunt as she gets when she goes weeks without pausing in her experimentation. So she’s feeding herself, at least, but even a Mechanism needs social interaction now and then. “How time-sensitive? As in, you’ll be done with it soon?”

“N-no,” she stutters. Brian’s hand returns to the exposed spot between her shirt and the waistband of her shorts, where he works his way inward and then upward until he’s brushing his knuckles across her ribs. “Maybe. Um. It depends on the—the results.”

Brian hums and plants a kiss in her hair, closer to her ear. “I just think you might benefit from some more interpersonal engagements, is all.”

“Is that so?” She tilts her head to the side in contemplation, which gives Brian more room to kiss her and admire the way the lab lighting illuminates her profile.

“It’s good to take breaks. Get some dopamine and serotonin flowing, all that good stuff.”

She perks up a bit just from hearing him name a couple of hormones, then shakes her head. “Don’t think you can fool me by trying to talk science.”

“Melatonin. Oxytocin. Va—”

“Shush!” Raphaella elbows him in the side, only to wince when her arm makes contact with Brian’s unyielding body. “If you’re just horny, there are  _ several  _ other people on this ship who aren’t busy and could take care of that for you.”

Yet another approach, then. “That’s not why I’m here. I want to spend time with  _ you,  _ Raphaella.”

Another moment of silence passes while she decants a bit of bright orange liquid into a flask, then turns off the burner flickering off to one side. That’s one hazard eliminated, at least. “And you can’t wait until I’m done with this?”

“I know you very well by now. You’ll have at least three other projects in the works before you ‘finish’ whatever this is.” Brian loops his thumb through one belt loop on her shorts and gives it a playful tug.

Raphaella groans and leans her head back against him, which Brian will generously consider an admission of defeat. “So you’re just going to stay here. And bother me.”

“Not  _ bother.  _ If you really don’t want me around, I’ll leave.”

“You—you don’t have to,” she mumbles.

Brian grins. That’s exactly what he wanted to hear. “Lonely?”

“Maybe. What about it?”

Taking a chance in her moment of weakness, Brian kisses her temple and lets his body press against hers. “How about we make a deal? If I can successfully distract you from your work,” he says, squeezing her ass lightly, “you have to come back to the common space with me and spend some time with the crew. Take a break, care for yourself, all that. And if I  _ can’t  _ distract you, then you get to keep me here and do whatever you want with me.”

The look in Raphaella’s eyes when she turns her head toward him suggests that there’s an equal chance of him being used as a personal man-sized vibrator, or just being experimented on. “I’m… not opposed. Is there a metric for what constitutes distraction?”

“I’ll let you be the judge of that.”

She grins, appeased by the ease with which she can skew the results. “I like that. I’ll agree to your deal, then. Just know that if we both die in some horrible explosion, it’s entirely your fault.”

“Of course.” Brian isn’t focusing on the thought of scientific calamity, since he’s busy tracing his fingers along the waistband of her shorts and then toying with the button. “Shall we begin?”

“Any time now.”

Without further ado, Brian slides one hand into Raphaella’s shorts and brushes his fingers over her clit through her underwear. She inhales, sharp but controlled, and continues dropping tiny spoonfuls of a very fine powder into the concoction in front of her, feigning indifference. “That’s awfully forward of you,” she comments.

“Would you like me to be more of a tease? I could manage that.” His other hand, currently resting on her waist, moves up to cup one of her breasts and just barely avoids touching her nipple.

She rolls her eyes. “Rude.”

Humming against the back of her neck, Brian drags his metal nails across her ribs and up her sternum, then presses his hand flat across her chest and pulls her toward his body possessively. “Yes, I can be.”

Raphaella only shakes her head and fiddles with a valve on the apparatus in front of her, until something starts to drip at a predictable rate, and she counts drops of fluid with laser-sharp precision. A perfect time to be distracted, then. Brian strokes her through her underwear a few more times, keeping his touch light and unsatisfying, until she shuffles her hips a bit, at which point he withdraws his hand just enough to slip it into her underwear.

“If you make me lose count, I’m going to—”

“I have faith in your abilities,” Brian cuts her off. Regardless, he doesn’t deign to make it any easier for her. Though the angle is a bit awkward, his hands are nimble and even after his time away from the Aurora, he knows his partners’ bodies well. Raphaella comes on his fingers twice before he lets up, but she doesn’t lose count, and Brian withdraws his hand to lick his fingers clean and regroup.

His other hand still rests across the center of her chest, and he can feel how hard she’s breathing. “Will that be all?” she teases, voice strained but steady.

“Of course not.” Brian takes a step back, running an appreciative hand across the top edge of her wing again. “I’m insulted that you think I’d give up that easily.”

He unzips his own pants and then starts to unbutton Raphaella’s shorts slowly enough to make her squirm with impatience by the time he actually pulls them off. As she shuts off the tube currently dripping mysterious liquid into the beaker in front of her, Brian palms himself, collecting a bit of lube from the tip of his cock to make sure he’s well-slicked. Once that’s done, he brushes her hair over one shoulder and kisses the back of her neck, this time with a hint of teeth, and then thrusts into her in one smooth motion.

To her credit, Raphaella doesn’t make a sound. She grips the edge of the lab bench as Brian sets a leisurely pace, her fingers white-knuckled and jaw clenched, but she stays quiet until Brian starts to pull her shirt off. “Okay, if I get chemical burns because you wanted to play with my tits, I’m  _ not  _ going to be happy.”

“Don’t spill any chemicals, then.”

She huffs something about lab safety, which is positively  _ rich  _ coming from her, but doesn’t protest otherwise. At first, Brian goes easy on her, taking the time to find a rhythm that has her breathing heavily but doesn’t interrupt her work. While she stays firmly silent, she eventually covers the beaker with some kind of plastic film and pushes it off to the side, then grabs her notebook and starts recording data apparently from memory. Brian grins—he’s never seen her spend so long just taking notes, which means she’s probably just trying to look busy while he fucks her.

“Taking your time?” she mutters, as Brian notices her starting to rock back against him.

He laughs and trails his hand across her belly, back down to where he enters her, and then starts vibrating his fingertips. “Sure.”

As soon as his vibrating fingers touch her clit, Raphaella lets out a startled  _ “oh”  _ and drops her pencil, exactly as Brian hoped. He keeps the pressure light and the vibration low, barely teasing her until she collects herself and starts scribbling in her notebook again. That doesn’t dissuade him; he’s happy to take his time and lull her into a false sense of security while he studies the way her body reacts outside of her control. She’s still valiantly fighting to keep quiet, but his mechanical ears are sensitive enough to hear the way her throat clicks with every stifled moan, and he nuzzles his face over her shoulder and into her neck to feel the warm flush of her skin under his lips. Every time she starts to look a bit too focused, he turns up the vibration. It takes a while, but after twenty minutes or so, she can’t stay quiet anymore.

“There’s really no need to pretend,” he reassures her, wrapping his arm around her waist so she can’t wriggle away from his fingers. “No need to deny your body what it wants. You can come again.”

“Not going to,” Raphaella growls.

Brian just nips the back of her neck and turns on the vibration in his cock.

It’s not like he’s never used this particular feature on her before, but he wouldn’t know it from the way Raphaella yelps in surprise. She doesn’t drop her pencil this time, but she’s not trying to do anything with it either, so it just trembles in her hand as she moans through clenched teeth and shakes in Brian’s arms. “What was that?” he asks playfully.

“F-fuck you.”

“I distinctly heard you say that you  _ weren’t  _ going to come again.”

She breathes out hard through her nose and leans over the table, away from Brian’s curious mouth. “Haven’t yet.”

“Yet.” Bending over the table takes her farther from his hands and lips, but it also allows him to thrust deeper into her, and he can tell by the way her fists clench that it’s having an effect. He removes his arm from around her waist and instead grabs a handful of her hair, tugging it hard enough to pull her head back and make her grunt. “You will, though.”

Brian changes the vibration inside her to an unsteady pattern of rumbles rather than a steady buzz, and within seconds he feels her pulsing around him as she stops fighting to stay quiet. Her voice fills the room, gasping and whining in time with Brian’s thrusts and the hand pulling her hair, until he turns his fingers up a bit higher and her mouth falls open on a cry.

“Br-rian I’m—I’m c-coming, I’m—”

He shushes her with a sharp thrust. “I can feel that. Let go, angel, I’ve got you.”

The pencil drops from her hand and rolls to the floor, forgotten. Too overcome by the throes of orgasm to notice her own defeat, Raphaella holds on to the edge of the lab bench and gives in to the tremors wracking her body. She keeps shaking even as Brian slows the vibrations, then stops them altogether, and he hesitates to untangle his fingers from her hair for fear that she’ll faceplant on the lab bench. When she finally opens her eyes and starts shifting uncomfortably on his cock, Brian lets go of her and eases himself out of her, though not without noticing the wetness slicked down the insides of her thighs.

“So,” he says once she pushes herself up onto her elbows and starts coming back to reality. “What would you say? Distracting enough?”

She looks like she’s about to tell him off for just a second, but then she closes her eyes with a laugh and shakes her head. “I have no room to pretend otherwise. Though I maintain that  _ two  _ vibrating body parts are cheating!”

“Hm… should’ve made that a rule beforehand,” he replies smugly.

“Oh, sure.” As soon as she starts to turn around, Brian reaches out to help her get her balance, and she takes the opportunity to lean into his chest. “Did you finish? I’d be happy to suck your dick, just—”

Brian cuts her off with a finger on her lips. “We’re not done yet, love. You lost, so you have to spend some time with the crew, remember?”

Realization flashes in her eyes and, somehow, her cheeks turn even redder. “Oh. You—oh. You  _ bastard.” _

“I haven’t sent out the call yet, but with your consent, I will.”

Raphaella bites her lip and pretends to ponder, though Brian can tell from the way she curls her fingers around the back of his neck that she’s delighted by the idea. “Oh,  _ fine.  _ It’s been a while since I’ve been the center of attention, I guess.”

“And that should be remedied,” Brian insists. “It’s what you deserve.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright so my counselor says I can't fix my life until I fix my sleep schedule, so that makes writing a bit harder. I get the most Inspired after midnight. Unfortunately. BUT I also have many ideas and hopefully will feel better if I sleep more, so... we'll see.
> 
> anyway... just 2 chapters left I think? (i could be convinced to write a chapter for Nastya and/or the Aurora if the readership is interested...) It might be a bit because I need to take Non-Horny Breaks, but it'll happen.
> 
> I love comments and kudos and Telepathic Vibes and all of you!!! thank you for reading!!


	6. Chapter 6

Brian has a hard time with the ropes, at first.

He’s always been the go-to crew member for rope bondage—big, strong, steady hands, eye for detail—but after Camelot, it’s harder to string someone else up. And he learned plenty of what _not_ to do, hanging there for hundreds of years. So he’s not surprised, necessarily, when Tim shows up at his door with a length of red silk rope, but he’s hesitant at first.

Besides, he tied Ivy up the week before and had no issues; it was just something about Tim, gorgeous and pliant and glowing under a web of Brian’s finest work, that made Brian ache for the rusted barrens of Fort Galfridian. Tim would’ve looked lovely there. Maybe if Tim had been their false prophet, if he’d been able to scream some sense into Gawain or misgender Mordred just _one_ time or—no, Brian can’t go down this path again. He stays in the present, focusing on the thick knot in the center of Tim’s back and running his knuckles over the ropes to ground himself.

“You good over there?” Ashes calls, making Brian start.

He brushes his fingers up from the knot to rest between Tim’s shoulder blades, where the golden shimmer of his own metal hand contrasts with Tim’s freckled skin. “Yeah. Done dealing?”

“You’re up first.”

It’s not particularly _easy_ to see the cards with Tim in the way, but that’s the point of this exercise: to feel Tim shift and shudder as Brian leans forward to pick up his hand and examine his luck. He’s got three sevens, somehow. How the tables turn. “Sorry, I can’t see—what’s on top of my deck?”

“Three,” Ashes replies, before shifting the pile of cards to Brian’s left until it’s in his line of sight.

Tim follows the movement with his head, which gives Brian a lovely view of his profile, eyes unfocused and lips stretched around a black rubber bit gag. “Alright. Draw one for me, will you?”

Ashes hands him his seventh card—another seven. “This deck isn’t rigged, right?”

They frown. “Shouldn’t be. It’s three decks, though, remember?”

“Huh.” Brian decides not to give himself away and instead starts a stack in the middle, ace-two-three-four. It’s almost cute to watch the way Tim’s head sways with every snap of a card on the table. Once he’s done, Brian leans back again, cards folded into his hand, and pretends not to notice how Tim arches his back when Brian shifts inside him.

On the other side of the table, Ashes draws a card and scowls down at their own hand. “I think you’ve got a good-luck charm in your lap there, Drumbot.”

“Maybe if you ask nicely, I’ll trade him off. After I win a few rounds.”

Tim whines at that, only to cut off seconds later when Ashes reaches for the cattle prod off to the right of their cards. Of the entire crew, Jonny is the only one who claims to have seen a cow in person, but it’s much easier to find ways to electrocute one’s crewmates than it is to find actual livestock. “Good boy,” Ashes soothes when Tim settles back into silence again.

Despite their complaints, Ashes plays nearly their entire hand before finishing their turn and crossing their arms. “Your turn.”

Brian notes with a smirk that they left one of the stacks at six. Maybe he really _will_ be the arbiter of sevens this time around, which feels disrespectful if anything; he hopes Ashes won’t take it personally.

They trade a few turns without speaking, which only highlights the way Tim sighs and shifts every time Brian moves under him. He’s so desperate for attention, for _friction,_ that his breathing quickens when Brian curls a lock of his hair around one finger. Meanwhile, Ashes keeps an eye on Tim’s face and a hand close to the cattle prod, ready to keep him in line if need be, as Brian withholds his sevens with cruel precision.

By the time Brian’s deck starts to dwindle, he’s feeling a bit too smug about his chances, given that he’s still playing against Ashes. “Still willing to bet this?” he teases, squeezing Tim’s hip to indicate what they’re betting.

Ashes snorts. “Don’t push your luck.”

Brian tilts his head playfully as he plays a few more cards from his deck. Two left. He hasn’t beaten Ashes at, well, _anything_ in a few decades. “If you say so.”

“I do, in fact.” And they start playing from their hand—cards slapping onto the table, one after another until they draw a new hand and then, as if by magic, their deck begins to disappear. Brian’s _still_ holding on to a few sevens, but that doesn’t stop them. Their smirk grows to a sadistic grin by the time they finish their play, flipping the last three cards from their deck directly into the piles in the middle and slamming their hand down victoriously. “And there you have it. I’ll claim my prize now, if you don’t mind.”

Stifling his disappointment, Brian grabs Tim’s hips and lifts him gently until he can find his own footing. “Go on, then,” he prompts, nudging Tim’s hip until he stumbles around the table and into Ashes’ waiting arms. There, they pull him onto their lap and guide his legs gently to straddle them, then position their strap so he can settle onto it. Brian reaches across the table to grab the cattle prod, just in case Tim can’t hold his tongue, but he behaves.

The second game goes a bit more smoothly, at least in terms of unexpected upsets—which is to say, Ashes kicks Brian’s ass. They start a third round, then a fourth, while Tim grows more and more restless in Ashes’ lap, whimpering and leaning into them when they continue to keep their attention anywhere else. At the end of the fifth game, Ashes takes pity on Brian and passes Tim back over, only to shock him when he sinks onto Brian’s cock and moans out loud.

 _“Fuck!”_ Tim shouts around the gag.

Ashes shocks him again. “You were doing so well, pet.”

“He can still hold it together. Can’t you, sweetheart?” Brian asks, craning his neck to meet Tim’s eyes. He can tell how badly Tim wants to nod, to lean into the slightest possibility of praise, but he stays still and unresponsive. “What a good toy. You know, Ashes, I don’t think I’m going to beat you at cards any time soon.”

“Of course not,” Ashes scoffs.

Brian pushes his chair back from the table a bit, jostling Tim in the process. He can feel the gunner’s silent gasps at the movement. “Shall we switch to a different game? I think our plaything might have earned a turn.”

After a moment of contemplation, Ashes stands up and drags their chair around the table so they can have unhindered access to Tim (and Brian, if they so wish). “I’m inclined to agree. He’s trying _so_ hard to be good for us.” They trace a finger down Tim’s chest, over the crisscrossing ropes and through the dark hair dusting his belly, before pulling away just before they can reach his neglected cock. “And we haven’t touched him at all. Awfully rude, I figure.”

Tim makes a noise that’s probably meant to be agreement.

“I ought to shock you for that,” Brian murmurs in his ear, though the way Tim shivers on top of him at the threat is just as satisfying as any punishment.

“He’s not going to be able to keep quiet much longer. Actually, why don’t you go ahead and take the gag out?” As Brian does what he’s told, Ashes leans back into their chair and nudges Tim’s cock with one heavy boot. He jumps at the touch. “Can I get a color from you, Tim?”

Tim’s head wobbles a bit as he drags himself back to reality, then gives them three firm nods to indicate green.

Without wasting a moment, Ashes presses the sole of their boot down until they’re pinning Tim’s cock to his own stomach. He cries out, head tossed back against Brian’s shoulder, which only spurs Brian to start moving his hips at long last. “Gorgeous,” says Ashes.

“Feels wonderful, too,” Brian adds.

Ashes lowers their foot to the floor again, only to spread their legs and palm themself through their shorts. “Putting on a lovely show for us, aren’t you? I’d like to see you ride Brian, if you can manage that.”

With Brian’s help, Tim plants his knees on either side of Brian’s thighs and starts to bounce, losing himself in the shifting sounds of his skin against Brian’s trousers. As soft and hazy as he is, Tim still rides with enthusiasm—enough so that Brian has to get a hand on his hip to keep him from hurting himself just from the sheer size of the cock he’s taking. After a few minutes of quiet observation, Ashes unbuttons their shorts and throws them off to the side, strap included, then beckons Tim with a dangerous heat in their eyes. It’s all Brian can do to hold onto the ropes at Tim’s back to keep him from falling over in his haste.

“Remember to breathe,” Brian reminds Tim, who responds with a noncommittal grunt as Ashes opens their legs and pulls him in by the hair. The motion pulls Tim off of Brian, who winces at the sound of Tim’s knees hitting the floor. “You almost threw him on the ground, Ashes!”

They roll their eyes, though Brian isn’t sure if it’s out of exasperation or pleasure at this point. “Nothing he hasn’t dealt with before.”

“We’ve got to work on playing _nice_ with our toys,” Brian grumbles as he slides out of his chair and onto his knees behind Tim. The position is precarious—Tim’s arms are still bound to his sides, so he really has no way to hold himself up, but with his head between Ashes’ thighs and his hips in Brian’s firm hands, he’s not going anywhere. Brian shoves his cock back into Tim and sighs at the twitching warmth of his well-used body.

Now that they’re both kneeling on the floor, Brian has more room to grab Tim’s hips and fuck him as brutally as he wants. The harder he thrusts, the more his focus narrows to Tim’s soft hips and pliant back, to the dark curls hanging around Tim’s shoulders, to the way Tim hums when Brian wraps his arms around his waist and digs his teeth into his shoulder. Brian doesn’t notice Ashes gasping and twitching when they come, nor does he notice them pushing their chair back so that Brian is the only thing holding Tim up. “You’re _so_ good for me,” Brian growls against Tim’s neck. “So well-behaved. So obedient. I’m going to fill you up, because that’s what you’ve earned.”

Tim groans at the promise, and that’s enough to push Brian over the edge. For a long moment, Brian holds him almost tight enough to crush him, while he grinds his cock as deep as it’ll go and pumps cum into him until it’s overflowing and leaking down Tim’s thighs. Stars flash and burst behind Brian’s closed eyelids, his electrical synapses struggling to keep up with the rush of stimulation. Once the wave finally begins to recede, leaving Brian capable of movement again, he reaches down to finish Tim off, only to find his spent cock dripping onto the floor.

“That was _really_ fuckin’ hot,” Ashes announces.

Electing to ignore them for the moment, Brian unwinds his arms from around Tim, though he holds onto his waist to keep him from falling until he can pull out and drag Tim back onto his knees. “Glad to be of service, I guess?”

“If I were a crueller person, I’d make you do that to me right now.”

Brian raises his eyebrows. It’s been a long few days; he doesn’t have the same kind of limits as most of his human crewmates, but even he gets tired. “I owe you one. Just, um, not until I’ve had a good nap.”

He turns his focus to Tim, untying the knots at his back and then removing the intricate harness from his torso with quick but gentle fingers. Once he hands the rope off to Ashes to coil it up, Brian rubs Tim’s shoulders and examines his wrists to make sure they didn’t leave any lasting marks. It’s soft rope, but Tim likes his bondage strict. “Brian,” he murmurs, as if suddenly remembering his voice.

“Yeah?”

“I… like the sound of a good nap.”

Brian laughs, pulling Tim back to rest against his chest and kissing his cheek. “I bet you do. Let’s get you cleaned up, and then we can nap together, okay?”

Ashes stands up, then offers them both a hand. “We’ll even let you sleep in the middle, since you’ve been so good.”

The horrible pirate master-at-arms Tim would never admit it, but his face in the moment makes it clear that he wants nothing more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... got lazy and combined Tim and Ashes' chapters. On the one hand, I'm sorry, but on the other hand, I managed to stuff like 18 kinks into this one, so hopefully you're all having a good time? I'm ready to be done with this fic lol. I don't do chaptered things. Though, on the other hand, I'm EXTREMELY looking forward to writing Aurora ravishing Brian, as requested. ;3c
> 
> thank you so much for reading, and let me know if I missed any tags?? I don't even know the official kink terms for some of the stuff I'm writing at this point, I just kinda vibe with it and let the horny flow. pun intended. It's past my bedtime.
> 
> (speaking of which, it's too late to edit this but I want it OUT OF MY SIGHT so. if there are parts of this that make zero sense, please lmk! trying to position 3 characters at once is hard. I forgot about the gag several times. forgive me)
> 
> also if anyone can guess the card game they're playing from the extremely vague descriptions and/or having talked to me about card games ever, you get The Most Brownie Points


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs: magnetic robot bondage, weird wireplay/electrical mind sex?? sharing consciousness/sensations

In years past, Brian had always loved Aurora’s engine rooms, because the stifling heat was as far from the lonely expanse of space as he could get. After Fort Galfridian, though, he’s thankful for Aurora’s willingness to stall in place so that her engines don’t roast him when he visits. It’s been nearly a month now, not that they keep track of time so precisely, and Nastya insists that she ought to give Brian a thorough checkup and make sure that his machinery is working as it should be. “I know you trust the Toy Soldier to fix things, but I beg to differ on that point,” she snarks when he reminds her that he’s already been looked over.

“You were never in charge of my repairs before, you know,” he counters.

Nastya just keeps tugging him down the hallway into the engine room. “Aurora wants to see you, too. She’s really missed you.”

As soon as she swings the door open, a plethora of wires and cables and feelers appears from all directions, nearly pushing Brian off his feet. “Whoa, Aurora!” he laughs, batting her away from his face. “It’s not like you haven’t talked to me! I’ve been back for a bit.”

**You haven’t come to visit me!**

Brian interlaces his fingers with some of the wires currently holding his shoulder, following Nastya toward the massive engine cores in the center of the room. “I was worried about the heat. Are you sure you’re going to be alright just floating here…?”

**What’s going to happen? Space pirates? You’re already space pirates.**

“She has a point,” Nastya snickers.

Before Brian can worry any further, Nastya guides him to stand with his back against the engine, close enough that he can feel Aurora rumbling through every cog in his body. Nastya produces a screwdriver from the depths of her coat and starts to unbutton Brian’s shirt and remove the broad panel covering his chest. “Diving right in, are we?”

Nastya sets his chest plate down next to him and goes for his face next. “Just glancing over everything first. Looking for any big problems.”

That’s almost never how she’s done this in the past, but Brian just raises his eyebrows, which probably looks terrifying on his exposed circuitry. “Aurora, is she up to something?”

**:3c**

“Alright, so you’re  _ both  _ up to something.” Brian untangles his fingers from Aurora’s grip, then reaches out to take Nastya’s hand. “Care to tell me what?”

She squeezes his hand, then pauses in her work to rest her head on his shoulder, and Brian folds her into an embrace. “Aurora missed you. I told you that.”

“So much so that you’re taking all my panelling off and”—he tries to pull away from the engine wall and fails—“magnetizing the walls, apparently.”

**That’s a surprise tool that will help us later!**

Brian tilts his head up to the ceiling, as if there’s any one spot to look when talking to Aurora. “Very ominous. Thank you.”

When he looks down again, Nastya has pulled away, frowning at something in his chest. “I’m finding problems already. I  _ told  _ you there’d be something.”

“I never claimed to be perfect,” Brain grumbles. With his focus back on Nastya, he doesn’t notice the wires creeping toward the metal seams under his hair until a few of them manage to get up under the edges and pry the plates open. “Wait—Aurora, what are you doing?”

**Is this okay?**

As she asks, the wires make contact with the circuitry that makes up Brian’s brain, and all of his senses short out for a moment. When he comes to, everything is… brighter, stronger, like he’s sensing the space around him from every angle instead of just his own. “I—yeah, it’s. Good, actually. Why…?”

**If I am connected to you, it will be easier for Nastya to identify any problems with your mechanism. And, well, I want to spend some quality time with my pilot.**

Brian blushes, though he’s not sure how bashful he can really be when Nastya’s already wrist-deep in his chest. He didn’t even notice her starting, efficient as she is. “Quality time that involves sticking me to the wall and putting wires in my brain.”

“She’s nothing if not creative,” Nastya quips.

“And what about you?” Brian asks as Aurora sneaks another handful of wires into the edges of his chest, where they latch onto exposed circuitry with a jolt that makes him shudder. “You had no part in her dastardly plans?”

Nastya smirks. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Around them, Aurora hums in a tone that’s probably supposed to be soothing, but mostly comes off as loud. “Forgive me for making assumptions,” Brian continues, addressing the ceiling again, “but I feel like there’s more going on here than meets the eye.”

As Nastya finishes with whatever she was fixing and pulls away, Aurora sends a pulse of…  _ something  _ down the wires and directly into Brian’s brain, making him gasp. It’s not even pleasure, per se, just concentrated  _ feeling  _ in a way that his imitation-human brain can barely reconcile. He closes his eyes to combat the sudden overstimulation, but Aurora only gives him a few seconds to rest before flooding him with sensation again.

**I was under the impression that ‘quality time’ is a loaded phrase in human language.**

Brian swallows, which isn’t a thing he really needs to do, but the instinct is there anyway. “S-sometimes, yeah, but you’re—you’re—I didn’t know if that’s what you m-meant.”

“Coolant system looks good,” Nastya comments, poking his cheek where he can feel a blush rising. “Shouldn’t overheat if I leave you here. Aurora? Tell me when you’re done here?”

**Of course, love. You’re welcome to stay if you’d like.**

Nastya purses her lips, looking Brian up and down with a calculating squint that makes him feel somehow more exposed than he already does with half his plating on the ground. “I think I’ll pass. As long as you’re okay, Brian?”

Thankfully, Aurora lets up to give him time to think. He loves her—loves them both, though he’s certainly more familiar with Aurora on an intimate level, after millennia of piloting and all the quiet moments in between. At the moment, the way Aurora strokes him with her cables and prods at his joints makes his metal spine tingle with excitement, so he is, for once, eager for Nastya to leave. “I-I’m good. Wait, you’re actually gonna make sure everything’s fixed up, right? Later?”

“Of course. I still don’t trust the fucking _Toy Soldier_ to repair you.”  
He breathes a laugh. “I look forward to it. After, um, quality time.”

With that, Nastya shakes her head fondly and strides out of the engine room, leaving Brian alone in Aurora’s firm magnetic grip. Already, her wires are sneaking into every exposed crevice in his plating, finding the points where his neurons connect and joining him to the unfathomably complex sea of sensation that makes up Aurora’s world.

**Now that we’re alone, I have some things to show you. I have been experimenting!**

“I-is that so?” Brian stutters, heart pounding. “Do tell.”

**I do not usually connect my own sensors to Nastya like this, because we already share sensory input. However, in your absence, I spent a lot of time with the crew’s second-best navigator. We figured out almost immediately that we could communicate better like this than through spoken language.**

As if to demonstrate, Aurora sends a string of code into his brain that translates, at a speed Brian can’t hope to parse, into a brilliant spray of neon-purple stars in his vision. “Oh,” is all he can manage. “That’s… wow. You’ve been holding out on me this whole time?”

**You’re much better at verbal communication than Ivy.**

“Oh. That’s, uh, fair.” The stars fade in front of his eyes, and Aurora doesn’t add anything else to his vision, but he still feels like he’s watching the room from inside a fishbowl, like he can sense just a little more of everything than he should be able to. “Does it go… both ways? Can you feel what I feel?”

**Yes! :3c**

Brian bites his lip and reaches up to pat the cable threading into the back of his neck. Most of the iron in his body is in his internal organs, so the magnetized wall barely affects his limbs. “That must be old hat for you, though, with Nastya in your head all the time. Metaphorically.”

**Your sensations are entirely different! Nastya was not designed to spend much time in the real world, after all.**

“That’s depressing, but okay.” He feels something twinge in his brain that he can only describe as the impression of squinting, without any of the physicality. “I’m not saying  _ she’s  _ depressing! Just that Cyberia kind of, um, sucked.”

**This is true.**

Shaking off the awkwardness, Brian tries to turn and kiss the wires in his brain, only to realize that his head is very much stuck in place. “Aurora. Let me kiss you.”

She waves a cable in front of his face, which he happily peppers with kisses until she starts gently bopping him in the forehead in embarrassment. The emotion itself hits him a moment later, suffused with affection so deep and warm that it takes his breath away, and Brian has to close his eyes again to cope.

**Are you alright?**

“Fine,” he breathes. “I didn’t realize your feelings were so  _ strong.” _

**I am very big.**

That correlation doesn’t make much sense to Brian, but he’s not about to question it. “I love you so much, ‘Rora.”

**I love you too, Pilot Drumbot Brian!!!**

Again, her adoration rushes through him hard enough to make his nerves tingle all the way down into his fingers. He’s so delighted by the unfiltered connection that he doesn’t notice Aurora unbuttoning his pants until she’s already pulling them off, at which point he opens his eyes and glances down with a quizzical frown. “And here I thought you were just going to mess with my brain?”

**I have an idea first. An experiment!**

“I do enjoy those,” he murmurs. He is, after all, a scientist at heart.

**My human sensation dataset needs expanding! I know how Nastya feels when she comes, and Ivy, but those are very few data. Would you be willing to add to the pool?**

Brian smirks. “I was already under the impression that you’d be making me come before too long.”

**Of course I will! Before I do, however, I need an unbiased sample. Also, I like to watch the weird things humans do with their bodies!**

“Flattering,” Brian laughs. “You want me to get myself off, is what you’re saying.”

**Yes please! :3c**

As he disentangles a hand from Aurora’s cables and reaches down to palm himself, Brian smiles at the wave of curiosity closing in around him. “I’m not sure how unbiased it’ll be, given that you’re already in my head, but I’ll do my best.”

He feels Aurora recede a bit, indicating that she apparently has some control over how deep in his consciousness she can get. Without her feelings swelling and curling around his own, Brian can focus on the arousal building in his chest, which guides his steady hand as he slicks his cock with a few drops of lube and starts to pump it. Aurora’s curiosity is still there, in flashes that burst into his mind in synchrony with random images of himself from various angles. It’s a bit terrifying to see his own face and chest wide open, but he has to admit that it’s also hot. “I can feel—see? I can see you checking me out, you know,” he pants.

**You are an aesthetically pleasing man, my Drumbot.**

With her praise lingering in his ears, Brian doesn’t take long to work himself to a climax, and Aurora’s emotions return in full force before he’s even begun to catch his breath. The feeling of being praised from inside his own head brings tears to his eyes unbidden, and he claps his free hand over his mouth to stifle a sob. “F-fuck, Aurora,” he gasps, “y-you—warn me next time you come back, I’m…  _ fuck.” _

**I’m sorry! I did not mean to make you cry!**

“It’s okay! You just have, um,  _ very  _ strong feelings.”

**So I’ve been told. Would you like to keep going?**

He tries to nod and fails due to the magnets holding him in place, but Aurora’s in his head anyway, so she knows what he meant to do. “Yes, please,” he says out loud, because Aurora’s just as keen on verbal consent as the rest of them. “I want to know what you’re gonna do to me.”

By now, Aurora’s tendrils have found their way into nearly every joint in his body—bundles of them poke at his knees, his wrists, the edges of his groin, prodding at his plating until it pops off and scatters tiny screws across the floor. Brian should probably be afraid of someone strong enough to rip him open like this, but he’s too busy trembling with want when Aurora coils a wire around his cock and starts to probe at the seam where it joins with his body. Her control is overwhelming, doubly so when combined with the immensity of her love. Through her senses, he can feel what it’s like for her to touch him, to dismantle him, to fuse with his circuitry and flood him with energy. It’s a lot, to say the least.

**This is quite the feedback loop.**

Even Aurora’s voice is strained by now, and Brian has lost track of the boundary between her feelings and his own. “Y-yeah, it’s—I—h-how does it feel like you’re about to make me come from my  _ elbows?” _

**Spaceship secrets!**

“Yeah, right.” He huffs and writhes in her grip, not that he can really move at all; still, every twitch sends a crackling hum through him as their wiring jostles against one another. “Are you going to  _ fuck  _ me or just mess with my plating?”

Aurora laughs, a deep vibration that shudders in Brian’s metal bones. Then something in his head starts buzzing, like she’s flooding him with electricity, too dense and overpowering for him to process. Brian comes within seconds, and this time he feels how his orgasm flows into Aurora’s, building off each other until he’s white-hot overstimulation and nothing else. It doesn’t recede. He feels himself from the outside, from under the surface, feels the way he convulses in her grip and hears his own helpless gasps and tastes the tears on his cheeks. At the same time, he feels the lights in the far wing of the ship flicker and die. He feels the solar sail fluttering, too big for him to wrap his mind around, and the O’Neill ring turning, and even the most rudimentary understanding of Aurora’s scale feels like an epiphany of its own. It’s too much for him to think about, and then—then—

“Aurora, you’re making a fucking  _ mess  _ in here!”

In tandem, Brian and Aurora drag themselves back to reality, Brian struggling to breathe while Aurora reaches out to the edges of her consciousness to turn lights and fans and auxiliary engines back on before anything goes too horribly wrong. “N-Nas—you’re back?” Brian asks weakly.

“Positive feedback loops like that are dangerous,” she replies, more to Aurora than him. “We’ve talked about this.”

**I did not predict that outcome. Neither did you, to be fair.**

Brian frowns, confused. “Wait, what happened? Was that not…  _ supposed  _ to happen?”

**As Nastya said, it was a positive feedback loop. Nastya’s brain is human enough to recover from orgasm on its own, even with constant stimulation from me, but it seems that the two of us lack the kind of biological failsafes that prevent such dangerous situations. Interestingly, I’ve never had this issue with Ivy.**

“So you’d both just keep coming until Aurora crashed into something, basically,” Nastya deadpans.

That’s quite a concept for Brian to consider as Aurora finally turns off the magnets holding him to the wall, letting him slump into Nastya’s waiting arms. He’s  _ exhausted.  _ “Thanks for the rescue?”

She just presses her lips together and shakes her head at him. “Next time, Aurora, use a screwdriver like a  _ normal  _ machine. Do you have any idea how many little bits of Brian are scattered all over this room right now?”

**It’s my room! I know where they are!**

“You’d better help me out, then,” Nastya insists.

Brian just laughs and leans his head on her shoulder. “No rush. I’m happy to be here for the moment.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S DONE! I'M FREE!!! the curse of the chaptered fic is OVER. these were all supposed to be TINY DRABBLES and now look where we are. I'm so ready to be free from Horny Jail. But also, Aurora is a Good Ship and she deserves little a drumbot lovin'.
> 
> Pls comment if you are so inclined? I hope this chapter makes any sense, but I wrote like half of it at work so uhhhh it's a distinct possibility that it's gibberish. Feel free to tell me if so lol. I'm ready to go back to my to-do list and find something else to tackle for once... >:3c thank you for reading especially if you made it this far into Weird Horny Drumbot Hours!!!


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